158 Prodigal Parents: Rebuilding Relationships with Children and Not Losing Your Influence

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Blended®

This content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

Season 7, Episode 158: Prodigal Parents: Rebuilding Relationships with Children and Not Losing Your Influence

Guest:Judy Douglass

Air Date: February 24, 2025

Judy:The parents or whoever is trying to rebuild relationship needs to be willing to own that maybe they had a part in this; that it’s not all the fault of the prodigal or the person who’s run away, or maybe not physically, but often it is. It’s just a hard thing. Parents think, “We know,” “We’re wise,” “We’re mature,” “We’ve made the right choices,” and they’re the ones making the wrong choices. And they may be, yes, but if we can’t own that maybe some of our behavior, or way we respond to them, has been part of the push away, it’s very hard to renew or refresh and heal a relationship.

Ron:Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. Today we want to help you pursue a prodigal child in your life, or maybe a child who’s making some decisions that you struggle with. Now, even if you don’t have one of these, please listen for a friend or a family member that does, and if you think this podcast will encourage them, maybe you can just send it to them after listening. I’ll say more about our topic here in just a minute.

But first I want to remind everybody our worldwide livestream Blended and Blessed is coming your way on Saturday, April 5th this year live from Franklin, Tennessee. It’s a marriage seminar for blended family couples and you can attend live in Franklin, or you can attend from anywhere in the world online. It’s very simple and very affordable, and you can host a few couples in your home, watch together if you’d like to do that. We have churches who gather groups of couples together and go through the entire experience together.

This year we’re going to be focused on key themes from Nan and I’s new book called The Mindful Marriage. This book has broad application to blended families, and we can’t wait to share some of the key principles with you. I will mention that this book is not just for blended families. It is designed for all couples, all shapes and sizes, but we’re going to be focusing at Blended and Blessed on the aspects that apply most to blended family couples. Check the show notes for more information and learn how to register.

Okay, today’s podcast is a little different than usual. Not long ago I was interviewed by Judy Douglass for her podcast called When You Love a Prodigal. So with their permission, we’re sharing that audio recording with you today because it addresses an important topic for parenting, stepparenting and co-parenting; some things that we have never addressed on our podcast so we’re going to share it with you.

Judy is an author, a blogger, a podcaster and a self-appointed fire starter. She loves to ignite spiritual conversations with people. She’s the widow of Steve Douglass, former president of Campus Crusade for Christ International. Judy writes about lots of things, women’s ministry, the homeless, following Jesus, grandparenting—she has a bunch of grandchildren herself—and parenting a prodigal child. That is near and dear to her heart.

As I mentioned, she has a podcast on that subject, and she asked me to join her to talk about prodigal children and blended families. Here now is my conversation with Judy Douglass.

[Recorded Message]

Judy:If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey. So my wonderful listeners, do you have a blended family? I imagine there are quite a few who do. Have the challenges of finding harmony as you put new moms and dads and kids together been difficult? Our guest today brings years of experience that will be just the help you need. They will give any of us with a prodigal, practical ideas for relating to loved ones, and they will give us some specific things to help if they have a blended family. So I think everyone listening is going to have a great chance to get some good help today.

Our guest today, Ron Deal, brings years of experience that will be just the help you need if you have a blended family or even if you’re just walking through the challenges of having a prodigal in your family. So I think all of you, whether it’s a blended family or not, are going to find this very practical and helpful.

Ron Deal is Director of FamilyLife Blended and president of Smart Stepfamilies. I looked at some of his materials and you’ll be able to do the same as we have that information in the show notes. So welcome Ron. I’m so glad you’re here.

Ron:Oh, well thank you very much for having me. I’m very honored to be with you.

Judy:Well, it is a pleasure and I’m grateful to have you with us today. So I’m just going to let you tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you’re doing the things that you’re doing.

Ron:Nan and I have been married for 38 years. We’ve been in ministry either part-time while we finished college or full-time for all 38 of those years.

Judy:Awesome.

Ron:We’ve been in and around marriage and family ministry specifically for about 35 years. So we’ve spent a lot of time working with young people, working with parents and couples. In the course of doing that marriage and family work—first in a local church for two or three churches I worked for about 22 years, and then venturing out and doing nonprofit work and now working with FamilyLife for the last 12 years—I stumbled onto this thing called Stepfamilies.

It was in graduate school, studying marriage and family therapy, that I gained a keen interest in the complexities of single parent families and blended families. In part because I had been a youth pastor at one point in my life and I’d worked with all these kids who had real internal struggles, identity issues, and I couldn’t really understand their world or their family when they would describe it to me. And so graduate school helped me really see the dynamics at play and understand it.

I came out and thought, “We’ve got to do more in the church to prevent problems within all families and all types of families,” and so I started doing stepfamily ministry. Only, what I didn’t realize is nobody else was doing that. So fast forward now 30 years later, FamilyLife and Cru has the largest international blended family ministry in the world.

Judy:Wow.

Ron:We have the leading resources. We’re the ones who are telling pastors and church leaders what they need to know so that they can minister better in a local church setting. And on an ongoing basis I have the privilege of doing podcasts and presentations and workshops and writing books and empowering, equipping couples as well as helping the church be the church to single parent families and blended families. And so that’s what brings me to the table here today.

And personally, I’m going to add have had some very important key friendship, relationships and people that I care deeply about that I would call not my biological children, but people that are my kids who have prodigal. And so I’ve felt it. I’ve been around it. I’ve walked with parents. I’ve seen it from all sides, and I don’t have it all figured out because none of us do but there’s few things that I’ve picked up—

Judy:None of us do.

Ron:Yeah, but I think I have a few things that I’ve picked up along the way that have been helpful to people.

Judy:I’m really looking forward to this. We’re going to let you talk on some general topics first and then we’re going to get more specific. But I wanted to say that on blended families, in a sense, I have a blended family. Because our son who has been our prodigal, he’s in great shape now, but he came to us, he was almost ten years old. We had him as a foster child and then we adopted him.

And so we are pulling into our family, our two daughters. It was quite a challenge for everyone to bring this new person into our lives. It was hard for him to not be with his family, which was primarily his birth mother and her parents. He never knew who his birth dad was.

So yeah, it definitely brings new dynamics into relationships and when you get that, you often get more challenges, but we’ll come back to that. The first thing I want to ask you is, what in the world is how to befriend a squirrel?

Ron:So how to befriend a squirrel. We just got the attention of your listener, who’s like, “What is going on?” Well, let me just back up and before I give you that analogy, let me just say, I think at the heart of the challenge for parents who are loving a prodigal is the pain that you feel as a parent and how helpless you feel.

Judy:Yes.

Ron:And what do you do with your pain? That’s one issue. And another central question has to do with, how do I gain influence with my child?

Judy:Yes.

Ron:You’re hoping that by word or example or something you can keep an influence with your child that will bring them back. Or of course, we pray for God to influence our children through other people, circumstances, different things that we want to see happen, but it’s really all about this question of influence. Where does that come from? And if I can have more, how do I get it?

So with that, let me just ask you a question. If I gave you a task and I said, “Judy, what I want you to do is I want you to go to a park, find the most beautiful park you can find. Go into that park; I bet you there’s a squirrel or two somewhere in that park”—

Judy:Probably lots.

Ron:—”and here’s your task, Judy. I want you to make a friend out of a squirrel.” Now, what would you not do if you’re trying to make friends with a squirrel?

Judy:Well, I probably wouldn’t chase after them. I certainly would not climb up in the tree to get them since I’m not good at that. My guess is I would think “What would they like?” Well, they would like food, nuts or other things. So that’s probably where I would start. And just say they’re up at a tree; I might sit around at the bottom of the tree eating the nuts myself even and offering them to them if they come down. That would be my approach.

Ron:Well, let me tell you, you get an A.

Judy:Oh, yay.

Ron:That was an awesome, that was a great answer. Let’s analyze for a second. What would you not do? Okay, well, chase is the first thing you cannot do.

Now, I just want everybody to pause for a minute. Your child, a prodigal is skittish. They’re a squirrel and for whatever reason, they don’t trust. They don’t believe. They don’t want you getting close to them. Maybe there’s some pain that’s happened in your relationship, maybe not. Maybe pain from somewhere else, some trauma in their life that has nothing to do with you, but still they’re skittish for whatever reason. They’re very afraid of being consumed or trapped and so because of that chasing is off the table.

Now, sometimes we just need to pause because when I talk with parents of prodigals, this is an eye-opening moment where they go, “You’re right. I chase all the time. I text them five times a day. I call them on a regular basis. They’ve said, don’t come over to the house unannounced, and I keep doing it.” That’s chasing. That’s doing all the things where you’re trying to gain some control, some influence on your own strength and power and your own timing over a squirrel that’s already skittish. You just can’t chase. The other thing you can’t do is you can’t throw rocks at it.

Judy:Yeah, that probably wouldn’t work.

Ron:You can’t call it names. No, it probably wouldn’t. You can’t call it names. You can’t yell and scream at it. You can’t do anything that is threatening to the squirrel. Now, in your mind, when you are getting angry with the squirrel, it’s because you love the squirrel. That’s the bind that parents of prodigals have is this is out of desperate love for your child that you’re trying to get their attention. But to the squirrel, it’s just anger and threatening. And so that just makes them even more skittish and they run further and further and further. And we in the process, Judy, lose our influence. We’re not gaining influence through these strategies. We’re losing our influence because there’s a growing distance between us and the squirrel. You can’t outrun a squirrel. And by the way, if you took a trap to the park and we said, “Oh, this is how I’m going to make friends with a squirrel. I’m going to trap it.” Well, trapping is not friendship. That’s not gaining influence.

Judy:They wouldn’t trust you at all then.

Ron:Absolutely, you’re losing your influence with all of those strategies. See, unfortunately, one of the things we resort to in life when we feel out of control is we go to blame, we go to shame, we go to control, or we just sort of escape the whole situation somehow. Blame is yelling, anger at the child, accusing it, saying this and that, all with an effort to try to get it to come near us. When you say that out loud, you go, well, that’s silly. It’s not going to come near you. Right, it’s not. It’s skittish to begin with and now you’re angry at it.

How about controlling it? Nope. You can trap it, but it’s not going to want to be your friend. It’s going to be trying to escape every chance it gets. That’s not really helpful.

Judy:Every time it will try to escape.

Ron:How about shaming it, saying something to your child that says, “Well, if you were a good son or daughter, you would”… “If you really loved your mom, you would”… “If you really were”… —something that shames their heart. Now why do we do that? I just want to repeat this because there’s really good intentions behind a lot of this when it comes out of us. It’s we’re really trying to bring that squirrel closer to us, but the reality is we’re making it harder for the squirrel.

Judy:Yes.

Ron:Okay, well, you had an excellent answer in, well, what would you do? And you said, “I would go to the park and sit under a tree,” right, “be very calm, be very patient, be present.” Now, present, the squirrel’s up the tree or the squirrel’s three trees away from you, but you still got to stay in one spot and show the squirrel that you’re not going anywhere and that you love it enough to persist. That’s one big key factor.

And the other thing is you got to have something attractive that squirrels like, even if they don’t trust you, they like nuts. And so you sit with the nuts close enough that maybe eventually the squirrel on its own timing, and that is the biggest, hardest part, to wait for its timing. But as it feels like it can move towards something that’s attractive to it, then you’re gaining influence.

You see, here’s the little ingredients that are wrapped up into this: direction. Are you facing the squirrel or are you walking out of the park? Well, no, you got to face the squirrel. Squirrel’s got to face you but now where second element is distance, how far away is the squirrel from you? If it’s all the way across the park from where you are, well, your influence is low. You may be facing one another, but at a great distance, you really don’t have much influence.

And then the third element is just what we might call anxiety. Is the squirrel going, “Oh my gosh, who’s that person? I don’t trust them. I don’t know what this is about. They tried to trap me before and they’ve chased me for a long time. I’m just assuming they’re going to keep chasing me now.” Whatever those elements are, it adds up to, “I don’t feel comfortable moving toward that person.”

This is the story of the prodigal son. Think about it. On day one, father and son were facing one another. They lived in the same home. They had that going for them and they also had distance going for them. They were close, relatively close, in proximity to one another. But as the anxiety went up and the son says, “I want my stuff, I’m out of here,” all of a sudden, the son has turned, and his direction has changed. He is facing away from the father. And then over time he’s moving physically away so now we have a direction problem and a distance problem and anxiety problem. And all three add up to a great, great distance. And the prodigal is way out there and the influence is low.

Now, what I love about the story, of course, this is the God part, is that the father waits, and you could just sort of posture him facing wherever it is that he thinks his son is. He’s always there. He’s sitting in the park. He’s calm, he’s present, he’s not going away. He’s persisting and he’s showing his willingness to remain.

Judy:You think of the fact that he sees him coming. Well, that means he’s watching.

Ron:That’s right.

Judy:But he’s not out there. He’s waiting.

Ron:That’s right. And so the change of heart in the prodigal is where we have a change in direction. The son’s face turns back towards the father, back towards home. Now he’s still a long way off, so we still have a distance problem, right? So see these three elements, we’ve got to get them all three working in the right direction. But eventually distance decreases. He’s now facing the father. They’re now—direction is good, but the son comes home with all that anxiety. “I know you don’t want to accept me as your son. There’s no way you can take me back.” And the father puts that to rest by saying, “No, no, no, no. You don’t understand. It’s okay. I love you. You’re my son. You’re always welcome here.”

Judy:I love it.

Ron:When we get into our pain as parents, we resort to all the wrong strategies. We start chasing, we start blaming, we start trying to control, we start trying to, we’re grasping for straws and understandably so. We love our kid; we want them back. We want them with the Lord. So we resort to what we think will work and it doesn’t work. We have to manage our own pain so that we don’t inadvertently do things that make it harder for the squirrel to A, even face us; B, begin to close the distance, seeing that there might be something attractive, there might be something worth moving toward there.

I mean, all of that is on the squirrel. And that’s what’s so difficult about this process for us as parents. We don’t like just hanging out in the park and waiting. That is not what parenting is about. When they were young, we did a whole lot of action and now we’re just sort of, the action is waiting. And that is super, super difficult and hard but the point is, until those elements are working for us, the squirrel just keeps running. How does that hit you?

Judy:Well, it certainly makes a lot of sense. A couple of things; first of all, the story of the prodigal son and his father, one of my very favorite stories in scripture and how I am always saying on this podcast and in my book and when I talk to people that we need to reach out to them, as not chase them but have open arms as opposed to pushing them away. And so what you’re talking about is that when they are close and you can have the open arms around them, then that’s a great thing. But when they pulled away, you can’t be grabbing.

And another thing that reminds me of, and it’s similar is I have a friend who has done a lot of work with teenagers mostly and now young adults, but she has a book, it’s called Bring Them Close. The most common Word and what causes the kids not to trust is that when there’s a conflict or a misunderstanding or a misbehaving, the parent will often say, “Go to your room.”

And when actuality, you’re sending them away then as opposed to bring them close. That might mean with younger ones, especially physical, bring them close, but with others it’s a not distancing between them. And so I really like what you’re saying about you have to be patient and wait. And I would say that’s true. The older they get, the more you have to wait. But the concept of the distance and the not scaring them away.

Ron:As we unpack this, a couple of things come to the surface for some people. One of them is, “Oh, I didn’t realize I was chasing when I was telling my son that he was absolutely wrong and going to hell.” Well, yeah, you were chasing with anger and blame and in a manner that made them not trust your message.

And so when people sort of wake up to those little moments, they go, “Well, what do I do now? We’re already in this place where there’s a lot of distance and my child is not facing me. I don’t have the direction working in my favor. It’s working against us right now.”

And it’s like, yeah, well there’s no fix that is up to you. Squirrel has to do a lot of heart change. But it really would be helpful if you would apologize. It really would be helpful if you would own that part of you in a way that just communicated to the squirrel, “Hey, I want you to know that I get that what I was doing back then or yesterday or whenever it was, that doesn’t make you trust me and I apologize for making you feel small or shaming you,” or whatever.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but I’m now realizing I was not doing the right thing. And I just want you to know I’m not going anywhere.”

See, this is that language of “I’m sitting in the park, I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I apologize. I hope someday you’ll give me another chance and maybe we can have a conversation, but that’s going to be on your time, not on mine.” And then you sort of let it go.

Judy:That’s an amazing thing to say that it’s up to the parent to open the apology in a sense. They may owe you an apology as well—

Ron:Yeah, absolutely.

Judy:—but it’s right for you to be the one to say, “I’m sorry that this threatened you or that this hurt you in some way that I did or said or how I acted.” And that’s very hard for a lot of parents to do. They’re sure that they’re right.

Ron:And they’re probably right about their child’s behavior. And this is where somebody will push back and they’ll go, “But Ron, my son’s doing…”, “My daughter’s doing this activity, behavior, choices all sinful, bad. If I apologize, it’s like I’m saying that that’s okay that they’re doing all it.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody’s saying that’s okay. It’s just you owning your half, your part, of this little dance and that’s all you’re owning. And if they were to come to you and say, “Oh, so you’re okay with me living this sort of life?” “No, we love you. We’re not going anywhere. We can’t give approval to that, but we love you.” Like your heart is, “We’re in favor of you just not that behavior. We can’t celebrate that.”

So you make those distinguishing truths every once in a while, but the point is what you’re saying is “I’m owning what I did, and I am letting you know that I’m going to work really hard not to do those kinds of things anymore.” Now, any squirrel that’s skittish, that’s had a few rocks thrown at it, who’s already run up and down the tree 80 times and just isn’t really interested in whatever nuts you’re bringing to the park is going to need a lot of time—

Judy:Yeah, that’s really true.

Ron:—for that to begin to change.

And so this sitting in the park and actively waiting thing is waiting a long time. It’s taking advantage of the little moments you have, maybe at holidays or birthdays or the time that you do get or whatever those little spaces come, taking advantage of it but not by throwing rocks, not by trying to trap or control. You can’t do any of that old behavior that is attempting to make the squirrel what you want it to be. You can’t do that anymore. You got to wait for the squirrel to come to you.

Judy:Well, and again, that whole concept is one that says the parents or whoever is trying to rebuild relationship needs to be willing to own that maybe they had a part in this; that it’s not all the fault of the prodigal or the person who’s run away, or maybe not physically, but often it is. It’s just a hard thing. Parents think, “We know,” “We’re wise,” “We’re mature,” “We’ve made the right choices,” and they’re the ones making the wrong choices. And they may be, yes, probably are making the wrong choices, but if we can’t own that maybe some of our behavior, or way we respond to them, has been part of the push away, it’s very hard to renew and refresh and heal a relationship.

Ron:That’s so insightful. Let me connect a couple other dots for you. So not only do we as adults when we have a painful moment—by the way, this is true of any pain in our life, whether it’s a work-related pain or a friendship or a marriage that just brings a sense of hurt to your life, or a child that’s acting out in ways and moving away from the Lord.

So we do the blame, shame, control or escape thing, but so do kids. And here’s the connection. Sometimes our blame or shame stuff we did, “No son of mine’s going to…” “Nope, you’re a deal. We don’t act that way.” That’s a shaming remark. And if they’ve heard half a dozen of those in their lifetime or a lot more than that, kids in their pain also do either blame: “Well, I’m coming right back at you, Dad. It’s your fault.” Shame: “Oh, it must be me. I’m just unlovable. My dad can’t receive me because he’s told me I’m not good enough to be a deal.” That’s shame.

If they internalize that sort of thing, now it’s like they’re trying to find their worth and whatever will come along their pathway, and that opens them up to all kinds of negative influences in the world. So they can do blame; they can do shame. They can do control where they try to control their world and their “I’m going to prove…” “I am going to get straight A’s, then my dad will receive me.” “I’m going to be the best basketball player and football player. I’m going to get a scholarship.” Then that proves to be fruitless.

Or they do escape, and escape is into drugs and alcohol and friendships and the world and anybody that will receive them, in sex and pornography. There’s lots of expressions of those coping styles. Often those things are what they end up chasing into their prodigal journey. And they’re still stuck in that just like you were stuck in that.

So when you as a parent say, “You know what? I just recognized something in me. I’ve been chasing you by being mad at you. And here I was trying to get because I love you so crazy, I wanted you to come back and get right with the Lord. And because of that, I just got mad at you all the time and I made you feel small and I’m so sorry and that’s not right of me. And I’m repenting of that. I’m going to try not to do that anymore.”

What you’re doing without saying the words. And son, I hope you’ll do the same without you never say those words because that’s a chase, right? That’s you now saying to the squirrel, “I got this for you. You just got to let me control it.” What you never do, but you model what it is to take control of your own heart.

Now, that might be in the long run, not today. I guarantee it won’t happen quick. But someday that might turn into be, well, a few nuts that you’ve just laid out on the ground in the park. All of a sudden, you’re a little more attractive as a person, as a parent. You got a little safer to this 35-year-old child that you’ve been chasing for a really long time. So it is the pathway not only to what is right for you to do, but it becomes a model for them of what it’s right for them to do.

Judy:So what you’re talking about is influence.

Ron:That’s it. It all comes down to how much influence do I have? There’s an old phrase; you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Why do you want to keep your enemies closer? Because you don’t have influence if they’re a long way away; that as distance grows, you lose. How much influence do we have over Iran and Russia right now?

Judy:Not too much.

Ron:Nothing. Not too much, right? It is in diplomacy; it is in relationship that you gain influence. So when I’ve often struggled as a family therapist, I’ve worked with some families where one parent will say, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done. If my child is going to continue to think X, Y, or Z or do X, Y or Z, they’re out of the house.” And my thought is, “Okay, wait a minute. You just totally self-sabotaged your influence. The further you push your child away, the less influence you have.” Are you trying to diminish your influence? And the answer of course is no. That parent thinks by threatening the child or kicking them out that they’re going to make the child repent. It doesn’t work that way. You just made your enemy, if I could say it like that, further from you. You have less influence now in their life, not more. What you got to do is figure out ways of being a safe person that they feel like they can move toward. This does not mean you condone their behavior, or their lifestyle. It does not mean that.

Judy:So talk about that a little more. I can hear lots of listeners saying, “I don’t have to tolerate what they’re doing in my home if it affects other people,” or “We’re supporting this.” So what about then.

Ron:What I’m saying is the woman caught in adultery, what did Jesus do? Did He move toward her, or did He move away from her? He moved toward her. And in so doing gained influence to say, now go and sin no more. But first things first, you move toward to gain influence, not away. Story after story after story; the whole biblical story is one big God moving toward us sinners.

Judy:Absolutely.

Ron:That from the moment we get kicked out of the garden, God’s moving toward us in grace. That is the story. And does he gain influence with us through doing that? Absolutely. Now, some of us, like me, have had a hardness in our hearts and found ourselves not really walking with God very closely and not really following his commands and wanting to do our own thing and pretty selfish. That’s part of my story. But God’s been pursuing me for thousands of years through the existence of the world.

Judy:How old are you?

Ron:Yes, exactly. And so it’s like, okay, so God has this ability to move toward but not embrace everything about me. And yet when I get finally where I’m motivated by his mercy and I get into him, he’s got all kinds of influence in my life. That is the biblical story, and that is the parental story I think that we want to go for.

Now, let me just tell you one other quick story just to illustrate. I know there’s a tension here. I’m not meaning to make this sound easy because when our kids are living a certain life or doing certain things, we don’t want to give the impression we’re okay with that. And yet at the same time, we’ve got to find a way to move toward. So very dear friends of ours, very, very dear friends of ours have a daughter who came out as a lesbian and then announced that she was getting married. Now, this is a young woman that—I have three boys. This is the daughter I never had. And so what do I do? Do I go to the wedding?

Here’s what I decided to do. And in hindsight, I still feel pretty good about this. Nothing’s clean, nothing’s perfect, but this is what I decided to do. I took her to lunch and okay, so I’m moving toward. I didn’t make a phone call, say, “I’m not coming to your wedding.” I didn’t just not show up. I did not respond to the RSVP. Moving away does not increase influence. I have to figure out how to move toward.

I take her to lunch, and I tell her how much I love her. I tell her how I am never leaving her life. And she is welcome in my home any day of the week, and we’re going to still celebrate holidays together, and we are going to continue to do life as we have done it all these years since she’s been in born into the world. But I say to her, but I can’t come to your wedding. I celebrate you. I do not celebrate this new thing you’re creating with another woman. I can’t celebrate that, but I’m not stopping to celebrate you. So committed to you just not going to be a part of that. Does that make sense?

And she was gracious, and she said, “Yes, I can see how that…” But the whole process was me moving toward her and then defining, “I am for you. I’m not for this.” And then as quickly as we could, we had her back in our home. We had more relationship. I get on the phone, we engage life together because if I don’t keep moving toward her, it’s going to be really easy for her to just feel like, “Well, Ron’s just, he’s not going to be a part of my world at all, and I can’t…” No, there is a way to move toward even in that tension.

Judy:Yeah, that’s true,

Ron:But then not celebrate that piece. And so that’s ultimately sometimes what parents of prodigals are going to have to look for. It is messy. It is not clean. And it’s a pretty miserable experience for you because as you move toward that person, you feel like you’re so torn inside and you’re in angst and you just wish they’d get their life figured out and that’s our pain. It’s our job to manage our pain, not make the squirrel manage our pain. Because squirrels are skittish. They don’t care about—

Judy:They’re very skittish.

Ron:They just can’t take responsibility to make you okay. That’s my job. And as I look at Jesus, I think, “Wow, He did a fantastic job of embracing people, moving to—

Judy:All the time he did.

Ron:Zacchaeus; that’s another great story of Jesus moving towards somebody. You ever notice he said, “I’m coming to your home” long before Zacchaeus ever repented.

Judy:Yeah, right.

Ron:Well, how can he do that? How can he embrace that sinner? Well, that’s what he does. He can move into that tension without embracing who the person was or their behavior.

Judy:And he did it over and over.

Ron:It’s hard. It is super, super hard, which is why we need people like you helping to speak into this and giving people community because we got to sort of just bleed on each other every now and then. Because it is so difficult.

Judy:It is hard. It is. And then when you put families together who weren’t families to begin with, and so bring some of this into what it’s like when you’ve got children, a new mom, a new dad, new siblings, all of a sudden, and you might not have chosen them.

Ron:For blended families when there’s a prodigal, one word I would give you is stress. Sometimes it’s just stress that has kind of created the distance or created the change of direction between you and that child, stepchild, whatever that situation is.

Let me just explain a couple of data points for your listeners. I think everybody would intuitively say, “Wow, if a parent dies, that’s hard on a kid.” Yes, it is of any age. It’s hard on a child, but in particular children that are young and in their adolescent years, for example. Going through a parental divorce; that is a highly stressful period of time for any child. Even we say sometimes under the best of circumstances. And an amicable divorce is still super high stress.

Judy:It’s still very hard.

Ron:Now here’s what most people don’t realize. Every day after that, let’s call it an earthquake. The death of the parent or the divorce; let’s call it the earthquake. Every day after that is filled with aftershocks that are almost too numerous to count for a child. We changed homes. We went to a different place. Family income got cut in half, maybe cut in a third if I live with one parent who was a lower income parent, and now this kid can’t play baseball and can’t do track and can’t be on the weekend whatever team because nobody can afford it. We had to change schools, so I lost friends. We had to change churches, so I lost friends. I had to make new friends, and they didn’t like me in the neighborhood and the community. See, every one of those is an aftershock in a child’s heart in life.

Judy:Oh, it’s so hard.

Ron:And then here’s the other data point that most people don’t really realize. When a parent marries again and forms a blended family, that is as stressful if not more to children than is the original earthquake, divorce or death of a parent. Most people really don’t know that. The research is clear that for children, it takes them longer to adjust to a parent’s marriage forming a blended family than it did for them to adjust to the original death or divorce that started this journey in the first place. It is stress upon stress upon a transition upon unwanted change, upon stress, upon loss over and over for kids. And one of the biggest losses is if they lose a sense of trust in their parent like, “You left mom, why did you do that?” Those kinds of questions that are really moral questions where a child loses faith in a parent because of something they did. That doesn’t happen every time, but it happens sometimes.

Judy:Yes. And sometimes then they think it’s their fault.

Ron:Yes, that’s the shame part. They turn it back on themselves. “Well, Dad left. I’m not a good kid.” And so what do kids do with all of that pain and stress? Well, it’s got to go somewhere. And candidly, sometimes it goes into blame, shame, control or escape. And so if they escape into drugs in the wrong group at high school or they shame themselves to the point of going internal, and “Like Dad, I guess God can’t love me either.”

Next thing you know, it sort of looks like, and it gives expression to that prodigal behavior where they lose faith, they lose connection with religious community. There’s distance in their relationship with their parent, and it gets hard in stepfamilies; leave home at earlier ages, meaning they move out, they get out to college, they move in with a friend, they don’t hang around as much. Why? Because there’s stress in the home. There’re things that they just are trying to get away from. And so all of that creates this vulnerability to the whole prodigal dynamic.

Judy:Oh, absolutely. When you throw that kind of stress that’s relational and close, it’s hard to not want something that helps you to escape it. And so that might be the friends you choose or the drugs or alcohol that you go to or the sex that you get more involved with. And yeah, all of those things can happen with any of them. But when there’s that kind of stress in the family and it’s not what you like, I mean, maybe your fortunate ones and everybody blends really well together, but I would imagine it’s just a hard thing. And so then you’re looking for a way out.

Ron:And so let’s just sort of bring this full circle and say the things that everything we’ve talked about so far is still the appropriate response if you’re in that blended family situation with a prodigal. And by the way, there’s another dynamic for some children in blended families, if they have another home—let’s say their dad and stepmom, and dad and stepmom are wonderful Christian people, upstanding high character folks, but biological mom who has the children 50 percent of the time is not. She’s just something less than let’s just say, or her worldview is very different. And so there’s this dramatic influence at mom’s house.

Well, that is a massive influence on a child’s heart and life, and it gives them an out away from the religious stuff and the expectation that comes along with religious life. And so again, there’s another factor that leads to that prodigal lifestyle; still direction, distance, closing the gap, moving toward finding ways of being calm and still, and a trustworthy presence in that squirrel’s life are still the right answers for parent or stepparent who are desperate to be an influence in that child’s heart and life.

I do believe, and we’ve seen many times, we’ve done a number of podcasts. My podcast is called FamilyLife Blended podcast for anybody who wants to listen. We’ve talked a lot about this influence when children are led away by the other household, for example, that I’ve seen so many times. A kid who will grow up and they’re totally taken under by the morals in the other home, but when they finally get to some clear-minded adult place in their life, they can look back and go, “Wow, there were no boundaries over there. No wonder I got away with everything. And no matter I wanted to go to that house all the time. But I can see now how dad was trying to teach me good things and standing up for me and trying to pull me in a direction that was really good for me.” And so some clarity really does happen for some kids. You just again, have to wait until they get to that place.

Judy:Yes. And sometimes it’s soon and sometimes it’s nuts. It’s very long.

Ron:That is exactly, exactly right. Always at the end of the day, we as parents have to manage the pain that we feel in this because if we don’t, it inadvertently drives us back to the same four things: blaming, shaming, controlling, or escape ourselves. And none of that

Judy:Say those again.

Ron:Blame that’s directed at somebody else. So in this case, it might be at the child, right? You’re wrong, you’re bad, you’re horrible, whatever. Anger is another expression of that. It’s just anything you do that tries to cast that blame on the other person hoping that that will right their direction.

Shame is where you make them feel bad about who they are, not good enough, not acceptable to you. Control is that I’m going to make you, you’re not going to act that way. That sort of parental response. And then the last one is if we escape. Now sometimes we’re escaping into our own stuff to try to deal with this pain over this child and we start drinking and we start doing whatever, and none of that’s going to be helpful or a good example for the child either.

At the end of the day, I’ve got to manage all of that in me so that I can be the safest, most loving person for my child who sits in the park and waits.

Judy:And how do you manage all of that in you?

Ron:Well, some people need a counselor. I’m serious. Some people need a support group. But you can’t begin to manage it if you don’t even notice it, if you’re just unwilling to, “This is all about my child and their decisions and their choices.” Well, yeah, that’s definitely a part of it. But what’s on you is who you have been and how you’re going to be continuing going forward.

And if you recognize now, “I’ve been chasing that squirrel and calling it names and throwing rocks since it was six.” Yeah, it’s time to stop because that squirrel will never come back at somebody who keeps throwing rocks. It is not your job to make them at age 25 or whatever, turn around and come back. The more rocks you throw, the less influence you have.

Judy:Well, that’s all insightful and helpful to understand and not easy for people to do that. There’s so much fear in a parent that they’ll never get them back. And so then you hold on and maybe do things that are really enabling, some bad choices as opposed to trying to walk well with them and not give them the distance and keep loving but not trying to control and not trying to make them do what you want.

It’s not an easy road. And that, as you said, might be a counselor. It may be a spouse that’s a little more grounded and able to do that and can help you. It might be your best friend who has either experienced something that gives them wisdom there. And so just ask God to provide that help that you need so that you don’t chase them away.

That always concerns me when I hear the attitudes and responses, and I think you’re chasing them away. You don’t have to say, I’m fine with what you’re doing. You just need to be there and seek to continue the relationship and not chase them away. But they know most of the time, they know exactly what you’re thinking. They know you don’t approve of this and that you don’t like this. You don’t need to tell them that.

Ron:You don’t ever have to say it again, even if you never said it again. They still know how you feel about it. But what they’re seeing when you continue to show your presence is “Alright, they’ll receive me, and they’ll continue to be around me. They’re not going to embrace this choice that I make or this lifestyle or whatever it is, but they love me enough to continue to be around.”

You could make the argument. I know we shouldn’t push parables too far. We shouldn’t make every little element of the parable equal something in life. That’s not the point of parables. But I do think it’s a fair thing to at least ask the question, what’s the best thing the father did in the story of the prodigal son in the whole story? What’s the greatest thing he did in the story? And I have to think that it’s the standing on the edge of the property waiting. He made himself as close in proximity to the child as he could. It was up to him. He was watching. His face was looking in the right direction. He was available when that moment came that the son turned and faced him, even at a great distance.

Now we got a distance problem, but the son began to close the gap. And then once the son was close, the running toward, the movement. Listen to that. It’s the movement toward. This is the story of our God for us. And ultimately waiting and movement toward is the delicate balance that I think we have to walk with the prodigals that we love.

Judy:It is a beautiful story. It is God’s position, the way He is waiting for us. And He chases in ways that aren’t going to chase you away because He sends love to you in lots of ways. But for most of us as parents, the waiting and being available is a huge part of it. And not accusing them, not pushing them away, not sending them off to their room by themselves kind of things, but saying, “I love you.” And they know that you don’t agree with what they’re doing. And so, Ron, any last words you want to share.

Ron:Wow; continue to pray. That’s what I find myself doing a lot around the personal matters in my life. I pray for discernment. Lord, do I say something? Do I not? Is this the moment? Is it not? Is this the moment I just enjoy them and find again, my delight for this person? I think that’s something that gets lost sometimes. When we look at our child or this child that you’re caring for and all you see is prodigal, well, you can’t really smile at them anymore. You can’t really delight in them anymore. It’s just a big no.

But you got to find your yes for this person and delight in the who they are, the nature of who they are, the great things about them. Because if you don’t let yourself do that, you probably will just keep retreating and you’re adding distance, which means you’re losing influence. So you’ve got to find your delight even as you have some boundaries around what you can celebrate in them and what you can’t. And so pray for that delight to come back.

Judy:And one last thought on tying that in again, to a blended family.

Ron:When there’s a prodigal, the biological parents should be the one in the park. More often than not, there’s exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, it’s the biological parent that the squirrel is even remotely invested in.

Sometimes a stepparent is the one who’s doing all the work and trying, yeah, no, I appreciate your heart for that child. You’re wanting to help. But this child, no matter what their age, their first investment is always in their biological parents. And you as a stepparent need in these hard stressful moments to just take a step back and let that, if there’s going to be a reconciliation, it needs to happen first between the child and the biological parent. You as a stepparent will come later. You, if there are stepsiblings, all those other people will come second. Let’s let the first thing happen because that’s what the squirrel really desperately wants the most.

Judy:And they really do. My son, the Lord was kind to let me fall in love with him as my son. It took a while because he was never easy at first. And then I wanted him to love me. And what it came down to, if he loved me, that would be betraying his birth mom who had not cared well for him, but who he still loved.

Ron:That’s right. It’s an identity issue for kids. That’s true for stepchildren as well. Their first loyalty is going to be to their biological parents.

Judy:That’s right, and I saw that, and it enabled me once the Lord really opened my eyes and saw that to just keep loving but not require love in return.

Ron:Good for you. That’s so hard.

Judy:And now he tells me he loves me all the time because he grew to it, and I didn’t force it on him. And that’s, yeah, the forcing, chasing to such a degree is a hard thing for the parent to not do. And so your words are full of wisdom to help them see that that’s, that’s not the right way to influence, the right distance, the facing the right way. So thank you for that.

Ron:Thank you.

Judy:I’m so grateful. And again, let me pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for this wisdom from a very practical illustration and from in different kinds of situations. And I pray for all of those who listen to this now and over time as it continues to be available, and that Ron’s good equipping will be truly helpful to people. So thank you Father in Jesus’ name.

[Studio]

Ron:And I’ll just add an amen to Judy’s prayer. This is Ron Deal, and you’ve been listening to my conversation with Judy Douglass on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. If you want to learn more about that podcast, check the show notes for a link. We’ll get you connected.

If our conversation made you think of someone with a child that they are struggling over, please send them a link to the conversation. I think it would be helpful for them. And we appreciate you extending the reach of this conversation. Our kids are too important.

Earlier I mentioned our upcoming annual livestream, Blended and Blessed. If you’re not familiar with it and you’re wondering, is that any good? Well, last year we had a few thousand people attending from 48 states and six foreign countries, and we asked them to give it a rating and people rated it a nine on a ten scale, and 94 percent of them watch the entire day’s events.

That tells you something, right? And our ratings throughout the eight years that we’ve been doing the Blended and Blessed livestream event are equally high. So yeah, I think it’s pretty good. Make plans to join us for Blended and Blessed, Saturday, April 5th, 2025. You can go to BlendedandBlessed.com to learn all about it.

Okay, next time, I’m talking with bestselling author and podcaster, Dr. Allison Cook about understanding your blended family from the inside out. That’s next time on FamilyLife Blended.

I’m Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching. And thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

FamilyLife Blended is part of the FamilyLife Podcast Network. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you’ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?

Copyright © 2025 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife.com